Belleville Legal Blog

Many people know that an injured person has the right to bring a lawsuit against a driver who causes a crash. The ability of family members to bring a survival suit against someone who causes the deadly collision through a wrongful death action is also well known. However, fewer people may know about their rights to bring a civil action against another person after an incapacitating collision.

Crashes can leave someone with severe injuries that aren't deadly. In some cases, those injuries could result in permanent incapacitation. Many times, the victims of severe brain and head injuries can become unable to care for themselves or make legal decisions on their own behalf. They could also wind up in a coma.

Residents of Illinois who own a newer vehicle can see how safe the front seats have become. Many come with crash tensioners, which tighten the seat belt the moment a crash occurs, and force limiters, which unspool webbing from the seat belt to reduce the force of impact and prevent chest injuries. Some front seat belts are even designed to connect with the airbags.

As front seat safety improves, rear seat safety lags behind. Traditionally, rear seats have always been safer, so the issue is not that automakers have done anything to make them less safe. All the same, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and others are saying that automakers must add more of this life-saving technology to the rear.

Illinois residents who have a loved one with Alzheimer's should know that misdiagnoses are not uncommon. A new report with contributions from scientists across the world has identified a type of dementia that mimics the symptoms of Alzheimer's like memory loss and confusion. It is called LATE dementia with LATE standing for limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy.

Most people with dementia are diagnosed as having Alzheimer's, yet research has shown that thousands of people are being mistakenly diagnosed with it. One reason is that most people with the symptoms mentioned above participate in clinical trials solely for Alzheimer's. These trials test for the beta-amyloid protein that causes Alzheimer's by forming plaque in the brain.

Car accidents generally involve one or more negligent parties. To be found legally negligent in an accident, a motorist must have had and violated a duty of care to the victim. Furthermore, a negligent party must have caused a victim to incur losses that were directly attributable to his or her actions. For instance, if a crash involving an impaired driver occurred on an Illinois highway, that person may have violated the duty of care owed to a victim.

However, if the accident occurred because the other driver ran a red light, the fact that the first driver was impaired may have no bearing on the case. There are many ways in which a driver could be found negligent in the aftermath of a car crash. For instance, he or she may have been speeding or otherwise driving too fast for road conditions.

In some hospitals, the biomedical and IT departments are not communicating as well as they could be, and that could lead to medical errors for patients in Illinois. According to one study, when hospitals work to improve communication between these departments, patient safety improves.

While networks at many companies can simply be patched or upgraded by IT as needed, this can be dangerous in hospitals if monitoring devices or other equipment is taken offline. Examples of failures that caused problems for devices or data sharing were noted in a study by the ECRI Institute. One was an incorrect data display on a fetal monitor. This could mean the change in a patient's condition is not promptly noted. Two others involved incomplete information being shared. A ventilator networked to a patient monitor did not display all the necessary information, and lab results shared to an electronic health record lacked lab values. By keeping one another consistently updated, biomedical and IT departments may be able to prevent these kinds of errors.

All medical professionals in the United States have the legal duty to act with competence and in the best interests of their patients at all times. This means that as long as the medical provider is taking the best possible action according to the specific situation, they will likely not be held accountable, even if mistakes and errors occur.

This is why many patients who have been through extended suffering wonder whether they will be able to successfully make a medical malpractice claim against their medical provider. If you are wondering the same thing, it is important to take the time to understand the laws in Illinois. Doing so will help to verify the likelihood of your case being successful.

Every year, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance cracks down on unsafe driving through Operation Safe Driver Week, a period of increased traffic law enforcement. Truck and passenger car motorists in Illinois will be affected. If stopped, they may be issued a warning or a citation.

Last year's numbers can provide a good indication of what the 2019 event will be like. The 2018 Operation Safe Driver Week involved 51,000 law enforcement officials across North America who stopped a total of 113,331 drivers, issued 57,405 citations and gave 87,907 warnings. A good portion of the citations (16,909 to passenger vehicle drivers and 1,908 to CMV drivers) were for speeding.

The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has published the results of a study that shows how even light rain can raise the risk of a fatal car crash. Illinois residents should know that this study uses precise data that previous studies of weather-related crashes did not.

In general, the study found that rain, snow and ice raise the risk of a deadly car crash by 34%. Moderate rain makes it 75% more likely while heavy rain makes it two and a half times more likely. Even light rain was found to increase fatal car crash risk by 27%.

The failure of mental health practitioners to get a second opinion from a psychiatric specialist or clinic often leads to overdiagnosis, according to a new study performed at John Hopkins University. The study included more than 75 cases that had been referred to the Johns Hopkins Early Psychosis Intervention Clinic between February 2011 and July 2017. In each of those cases, the patient had been diagnosed with schizophrenia by a non-specialty physician.

When researchers took a fresh look at those 75 cases, they discovered that the majority of patients who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia actually suffered from anxiety. Although there are five symptoms used to diagnose schizophrenia, mental health practitioners typically placed greater emphasis on one or two symptoms to form their diagnosis. One of the more commonly relied-upon symptoms was auditory hallucinations, otherwise known as hearing voices. However, experts say that hearing voices is associated with many other conditions and doesn't necessarily indicate schizophrenia.

One automaker is emphasizing an unusual selling point for its future autonomous technology: the ability to stop drunk drivers. Despite widespread public awareness campaigns and intensified law enforcement activity against driving under the influence, drunk driving continues to pose a major threat on Illinois highways. In 2017 alone, 10,874 people were killed due to drunk drivers, says the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Thousands more were injured, often severely.

Volvo Cars is announcing that it will begin installing a system in its vehicles in the early 2020s that will take action to put a stop to drunk driving. New Volvos will include cameras and sensors that monitor driver behavior for signs of drunkenness or excessive distraction. According to the automaker, this system is designed to prevent deadly or dangerous car accidents before they take place. It would check the driver for signs of intoxication, including closed eyes for an extended period of time or failing to provide any input at the steering wheel.

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Cook, Bartholomew, Shevlin & Cook, LLP is located in Belleville, Illinois, and serves clients throughout St. Clair County, Madison County, Monroe County, Jefferson County, Effingham County, Pike County, Peoria County, Randolph County, Washington County, Marion County, Sangamon County, Jackson County, Williamson County, Saline County and St. Louis County, including Columbia, East St. Louis, Fairview Heights, O'Fallon, Collinsville, Alton, Edwardsville, Marion, Mount Vernon, Salem, Carbondale, Springfield, Litchfield, St. Louis, Granite City and Harrisburg.